Examines the role of pronouns in the discursive display of identity. Through comparison of actual uses of the pronoun "I" in Javanese conversations with current views of pronouns in identity presentation, an attempt is made to show a vast cultural difference in how identity can be indexed and what variables may constitute identity in…

Reports on four school-age boys' use of the specialized register of sportscasting as performed both spontaneously and when elicited by the researcher, and compares the boys' production of formal register-marking features to adult usage. (27 references) (GLR)

The aims, content, and methods of language awareness in the German "Gymnasium" curriculum are presented and compared with other, especially English, models. Pupils' command of metalanguage is also reported, including results of a test to assess their level of language awareness and its relationship to linguistic competence. (29…

Focuses on the relationship between attitude and behavior in language. Adolescent male and female subjects were recorded, and index-scores of their linguistic behavior were compared to their assessment of in-group members in a verbal-guise attitude experiment and to their attitudes concerning language usage in a questionnaire. (Author/VWL)

Analyzes responses to 1996 Australian census regarding language use and compares them with those in the two previous censuses. Discusses divergent trends in different states and between two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. Comparison of language-shift rates between the three censuses and cross-tabulations with generation, age, gender, family…

Linguistic landscape (LL) refers to linguistic objects that mark the public space. This paper compares patterns of LL in a variety of homogeneous and mixed Israeli cities, and in East Jerusalem. The groups studied were Israeli Jews, Palestinian Israelis and non-Israeli Palestinians from East Jerusalem, of whom most are not Israeli citizens. The…

This article examines the use and choice of address pronouns among Finnish and Finland-Swedish students in various situations. The study is based on a questionnaire on address usage distributed to university students in the city of Vaasa in Finland. The aim of the study is to investigate potential differences between the use of T and V in Finnish…

Analyzed 104 language samples obtained from 42 different normal language learning children at 15, 19, and 35 months of age for the proportional use of 11 grammatical morphemes. Wide variability was found among the samples in the proportional use of each morpheme. (49 references) (JL)

It is 40 years since Coombs (1967) first drew attention to the World Education Crisis, and specifically problems in the educational systems of countries in the developing world. Today, many of these problems remain, and are most visible in the educational systems of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. A large number of children remain out of school…

One of the choices available in English is between one-word verbs (train at the gym) and their multi-word counterparts (work out at the gym). Multi-word verbs tend to be colloquial in tone and are a particular feature of informal spoken discourse. Previous research suggests that English learners often have problems with multi-word verbs, and may…

The Preschool Language Assessment Instrument (PLAI) was designed as a diagnostic tool for 3- to 6-year-old children to assess children's abilities to use language to solve thinking problems typically posed by teachers. The PLAI was developed after observing middle-class teachers in preschool classrooms encourage children to use language in…

To gain more information about the language awareness of young children, a study examined the relationship between 14 middle class kindergarten children's oral language and their reading achievement in third, fourth, and fifth grades. Individual children's ranks on 61 oral language features derived from a previous microethnography were compared to…

Following the federal court's Ann Arbor (Michigan) decision regarding the education of children who speak black English, the National Institute of Education and the Ann Arbor Public Schools cosponsored a national conference on the subject, the proceedings of which are summarized in this paper. Following an introduction, the paper provides…

This study compared the vocabulary of the period from 1943 to 1945 to the vocabulary of 1975. In addition to a direct comparison of word use, an indirect comparison was made using Thorndike's word list in the "Teacher's Word Book" (1931). The 1975 vocabulary, based on frequency of word appearance, was derived from 93 speeches made by students in…

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences among four oral language elicitation probes used to collect language samples from young children. Ten kindergarten, ten first-grade, and ten second-grade children provided the oral language samples. Each class was divided by sex, and five boys and five girls from each grade were randomly…